I can find no news outlet reporting the fact claimed in the headline, that the person died less than 24 hours after showing symptoms.
What is reported, in this article and many others, is that the person arrived at the hospital and died there the same day. There is no mention in any article I have read that the symptoms began less than 24 hours before the death.
The typical duration is 36 hours if untreated with antibiotika. So 24 hours is totally normal. Also the area is pretty typical for a single plague incident.
> The victim was rushed to Flagstaff Medical Center, showing severe symptoms, and died the same day.
But sure, that doesn't rule out that the symptoms became severere, or that there weren't different lesser symptoms beforehand. It does make it sound like it was all pretty immediate though.
That they were rushed to the medical center and died the same day doesn't tell us much.
They could have been ill at home for several days or weeks until someone decided to call for help; then when first responders arrived, they saw it was serious and rushed the patient to the medical center.
The local reporting just said the patient died the same day they sought care, without saying anything about when the illness may have started.
I recall being on a road trip and was at the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains; was getting ready to camp at a random camp site and noticed a sign warning or squirrels that carry bubonic plague via fleas…
Scary..
It’s not usually very bad. My wife used to do epidemiology in Utah, and the four corner states have a few plague cases every year. Very easy to get from prairie dogs as well. Iirc, prairie dog colonies are separated based on which ones have the plague and which don’t.
When you say it's easy to get from prairie dogs, how exactly does that happen? Is it like, you're camping, and a prairie dog gets into your tent? How exactly does that people get exposed to a prairie dog?
In China, particularly in Tibet and Qinghai, plague still occasionally occurs, because a wild animal, the Himalayan marmots carry it and people may get plague from them. After the CCP took over Tibet, antibotics were gradually used to cure the plague. Recent years, more people are traveling to Tibet by the newly built highways, and those people from the cities only find the marmots cute and sometimes touch them and get the disease. Local governments put large warning signs along the road to alert people about this, and hospitals and clinics in nearby towns are always prepared to cure some stupid tourists. Still, it is a potential threat, especially for now because now you can drive home in Shanghai with a cute marmot from infected region for only a few days, not knowing what comes home with you.
The Black Death occurred when European medicine (at least for diseases) was still rudimentary. Plague doctors had pleasant-smelling herbs in their masks because that seemed like a reasonable defense against the disease. Leaches and bloodletting were common treatments ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humorism ). Later, there was something of a legend regarding Four Thieves Vinegar ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_thieves_vinegar ).
But they did eventually connect plague outbreaks to rats, and killed the rats in the name of public health.
Today we have very effective antibiotics, better knowledge of the body to offer supportive care, and even knowledge about how the plague is transmitted so we can have more effective public health actions.
I am currently watching a TV show about a 21st century Japanese doctor who is sent back in time to 19th century Edo and it is fascinating how the answer to so many diseases is basically "penicillin".
How the hell humanity managed to last so long without antibiotics is mindboggling.
(I am making popcorn, in preparation for the inevitable administration schism and late night TweetRants between the "ban masks at all costs because what about her emails" and "profiteer from selling plague masks to the CDC under contracts bought with campaign donations" factions. I predict red plague masks with MAGA logos.)
I think the plague has not been an issue since it is very sensitive against penicillin. What is concerning is more the speed from diagnosis to death in this case.
I have read that southern Europeans often have a much harsher response to illness (higher fever / skin going bright red / that kind of thing), and that this is speculated to be a leftover from the Black Plague.
I can't find a reference to it now, though, and if there was a term for the exaggerated response I don't remember it.
It's possible that my memory confused a harsher fever response to normal illnesses with familial mediterranean fever:
Nasty thing that. Bubonic plague became famous for killing nearly half the western world in the 14th century in just a few years, but for all its voracious destructiveness, the pneumonic variant left it in the dust in specific situations. I've read that in cities and towns where plague took on its pneumonic form instead of its bubonic variant, 80%+ of the local population would die in just days. In some cities struck by this, populations didn't recover until the 18th century.
I was let down by the link to "plague" in the lede being internal. I don't know what I expected, because that's the norm.
At the very least, what I'd like to see from news sites is using a LLM to synthesize the most recent/relevant stories to generate some sort of blurb explaining the topic for a given page.
That is, if a human can't be bothered to do it themselves.
According to the article, they're all the same plague, but it manifests differently based on which organs it hits.
Apparently there's a couple of cases every year, but I've got to say that amidst the return of measles and various other diseases, the cuts in healthcare, this is not a great look.
I can find no news outlet reporting the fact claimed in the headline, that the person died less than 24 hours after showing symptoms.
What is reported, in this article and many others, is that the person arrived at the hospital and died there the same day. There is no mention in any article I have read that the symptoms began less than 24 hours before the death.
The typical duration is 36 hours if untreated with antibiotika. So 24 hours is totally normal. Also the area is pretty typical for a single plague incident.
This article kind of implies it:
> The victim was rushed to Flagstaff Medical Center, showing severe symptoms, and died the same day.
But sure, that doesn't rule out that the symptoms became severere, or that there weren't different lesser symptoms beforehand. It does make it sound like it was all pretty immediate though.
That they were rushed to the medical center and died the same day doesn't tell us much.
They could have been ill at home for several days or weeks until someone decided to call for help; then when first responders arrived, they saw it was serious and rushed the patient to the medical center.
The local reporting just said the patient died the same day they sought care, without saying anything about when the illness may have started.
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I.e. "after showing symptoms" and "after showing symptoms to staff, having finally checked in to a medical center" are completely different.
I recall being on a road trip and was at the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains; was getting ready to camp at a random camp site and noticed a sign warning or squirrels that carry bubonic plague via fleas… Scary..
It’s not usually very bad. My wife used to do epidemiology in Utah, and the four corner states have a few plague cases every year. Very easy to get from prairie dogs as well. Iirc, prairie dog colonies are separated based on which ones have the plague and which don’t.
I hope that the black footed ferret reintroduction efforts are successful (https://www.fws.gov/project/black-footed-ferret-recovery). There would be a lot less plague out there if so.
Lime disease has a similar relationship with predators that eat mice, so let's also keep an eye out for the owls and snakes.
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> Iirc, prairie dog colonies are separated based on which ones have the plague and which don’t.
Do you mean 'naturally' by their own selection, or some external means?
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When you say it's easy to get from prairie dogs, how exactly does that happen? Is it like, you're camping, and a prairie dog gets into your tent? How exactly does that people get exposed to a prairie dog?
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In China, particularly in Tibet and Qinghai, plague still occasionally occurs, because a wild animal, the Himalayan marmots carry it and people may get plague from them. After the CCP took over Tibet, antibotics were gradually used to cure the plague. Recent years, more people are traveling to Tibet by the newly built highways, and those people from the cities only find the marmots cute and sometimes touch them and get the disease. Local governments put large warning signs along the road to alert people about this, and hospitals and clinics in nearby towns are always prepared to cure some stupid tourists. Still, it is a potential threat, especially for now because now you can drive home in Shanghai with a cute marmot from infected region for only a few days, not knowing what comes home with you.
I knew someone (in the U.S.) who contracted the plague along with his wife. He survived but his wife did not.
According to him, about one person dies each year from it.
How did they get exposed?
Fleas moving from rats to pets I presume.
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What improvements do we have to survive against the plague compared to in the past? I'm curious to understand the difference
The Black Death occurred when European medicine (at least for diseases) was still rudimentary. Plague doctors had pleasant-smelling herbs in their masks because that seemed like a reasonable defense against the disease. Leaches and bloodletting were common treatments ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humorism ). Later, there was something of a legend regarding Four Thieves Vinegar ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_thieves_vinegar ).
But they did eventually connect plague outbreaks to rats, and killed the rats in the name of public health.
Today we have very effective antibiotics, better knowledge of the body to offer supportive care, and even knowledge about how the plague is transmitted so we can have more effective public health actions.
> Plague doctors had pleasant-smelling herbs in their masks because that seemed like a reasonable defense against the disease.
The implied condescension hits hard after the Covid masking debacle.
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Antibiotics. Yersenia pestis is a bacteria that can be killed by most antibiotics
I am currently watching a TV show about a 21st century Japanese doctor who is sent back in time to 19th century Edo and it is fascinating how the answer to so many diseases is basically "penicillin".
How the hell humanity managed to last so long without antibiotics is mindboggling.
And we have better Plague Masks these days.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/plague-do...
(I am making popcorn, in preparation for the inevitable administration schism and late night TweetRants between the "ban masks at all costs because what about her emails" and "profiteer from selling plague masks to the CDC under contracts bought with campaign donations" factions. I predict red plague masks with MAGA logos.)
I think the plague has not been an issue since it is very sensitive against penicillin. What is concerning is more the speed from diagnosis to death in this case.
Sadly, it could be as simple as the guy didn’t run up tens of thousands of dollars of healthcare, and left it too late to get treatment.
Not that complicated- germ theory and sanitation. The best way to survive an illness is to avoid getting it in the first place.
I have read that southern Europeans often have a much harsher response to illness (higher fever / skin going bright red / that kind of thing), and that this is speculated to be a leftover from the Black Plague.
I can't find a reference to it now, though, and if there was a term for the exaggerated response I don't remember it.
It's possible that my memory confused a harsher fever response to normal illnesses with familial mediterranean fever:
https://www.genome.gov/news/news-release/genomic-variation-c...
https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/how-bla...
Which plague?
Not stated in the article, but it's pneumonic plague, according to this story from azcentral and this story from CNN: https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-health/20... https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/12/health/plague-death-arizona
> Plague is a bacterial infection known for killing tens of millions in 14th century Europe. Today, it’s easily treated with antibiotics.
> The bubonic plague is the most common form of the bacterial infection, which spreads naturally among rodents like prairie dogs and rats.
Nasty thing that. Bubonic plague became famous for killing nearly half the western world in the 14th century in just a few years, but for all its voracious destructiveness, the pneumonic variant left it in the dust in specific situations. I've read that in cities and towns where plague took on its pneumonic form instead of its bubonic variant, 80%+ of the local population would die in just days. In some cities struck by this, populations didn't recover until the 18th century.
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Yersinia pestis, the bubonic plague.
You do know that both pneumonic and bubonic are caused by the same bacterium, right? They’re just different transmission methods.
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I was let down by the link to "plague" in the lede being internal. I don't know what I expected, because that's the norm.
At the very least, what I'd like to see from news sites is using a LLM to synthesize the most recent/relevant stories to generate some sort of blurb explaining the topic for a given page.
That is, if a human can't be bothered to do it themselves.
Bubonic
According to the article, they're all the same plague, but it manifests differently based on which organs it hits.
Apparently there's a couple of cases every year, but I've got to say that amidst the return of measles and various other diseases, the cuts in healthcare, this is not a great look.
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There's a vaccine, but it's old and not recommended for the general population.[1]
[1] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00041848.htm
There is also a cure if you catch it quick. It’s a pretty good cure - TFA says it has a survival rate of 90% with treatment.
Sounds like a great medicine to take, but a 10% death rate even when treated is pretty scary.
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In general, how do you get exposed to it? Hiking? Do people often get that close to prairie dogs? Hiking in Utah?
Fleas bite you in your sleep
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So it begins.